


And As It Always Has, Rock Crushes Scissors

by fujiidom



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Alternate Ending, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-02
Updated: 2009-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 11:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fujiidom/pseuds/fujiidom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What might've happened if Howard lost the (posited) game of rock, paper, scissors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And As It Always Has, Rock Crushes Scissors

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Paradox](http://sheldon_penny.livejournal.com)'s [Pirracy Prroject](http://community.livejournal.com/sheldon_penny/406057.html).

“Best two out of three?” Howard winced, attention still fixed on the echoing of the shower throughout his friends’ hallway.

“This is stupid. Also, I still don’t understand why you and Sheldon aren’t the ones to do it. We don’t even know this woman.” Raj crossed his arms and glared suspiciously at Leonard.

“Oh, please. You just want to stay back and try to _get_ to know her.” Leonard rolled his eyes and reached for his keys from the bowl. “Not that it would do you any good, since you’d just stand there and blink.”

“Standing there while blinking makes me _mysterious_ and exotic.”

“It makes you look someone you shouldn’t make sudden movements around.” Leonard mumbled before he snapped back to the reality. The sooner he retrieved Penny’s TV, the sooner he’d be plus fifteen in date assurance. “Howard, Raj - _stop_. Sheldon won fair and square.”

He was also sure that if Penny were to emerge fresh from the shower with everyone still here, he’d never get out the door. After the awkward _only-separated-by-a-shower-curtain moment_ and the subsequent _only-separated-by-a-bathroom-door conversation_ of getting directions to Kurt’s apartment, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

Their new neighbor was hypnotic. She was spectacularly beautiful and charming …and yet she was seemed kind and open at the same time; it wasn’t a combination his group of friends came into contact with often. Even Sheldon had seemed taken with her.

Which was ...well, he still wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He’d felt, for one ridiculous moment, like he was _competing_ with Sheldon. It hadn’t occurred to him until after Sheldon’s inevitable freak-out over the seating arrangements and things were back to mostly normal, but the memory of needing to one-up him remained. No matter how _impossible_ that interpretation was.

And it was impossible. This was, after all the same Sheldon he’d known to make faces when they had a female sub-in as fifth in their paintball team. He’d shake his head at Wolowitz’ breathy come-ons and Raj’s leering. He’d heard the rant on how ‘sex with yourself is the only kind worth the trouble’ too many times to count and had been asked for advanced notice on any and all foreseeable romantic inquiries so that there would be adequate time to pack.

Leonard watched Sheldon frowning at how quickly the heated sex scene onscreen had reduced Howard to barely doubling his never-ending entendres and switched back to cable, despite loud protests.

Sheldon picked back up the Stephen Hawking lecture and was reading the cassette specifications while a _Mythbusters_ rerun killed the mood. Leonard shook his head, knowing he was simply over-analyzing things.

This was still _Sheldon_ they were talking about. He didn’t even like watching the stylized stuff on _Battlestar_ , so clearly it was all his imagination. Especially considering how _smoking_ hot Starbuck was.

“Seriously, let’s go, Howard,” Leonard snapped. Howard and Raj stumbled out into the hallway ahead of him. He turned around, peeking just his head back into the apartment and waited for Sheldon to notice.

“Yes?” Sheldon’s head quirked and he set the video tape aside before he picked the DVD remote back up.

“You’ll be okay, right? I won’t come back to find her finishing up filing a police report because you freaked out over which side of the couch she was sitting on?”

Sheldon sent a withering look, before they both watched Caprica blink back into existence on the television. “I’m not a rocket scientist, Leonard. _Please_.”

Leonard rolled his eyes and shut the door noisily behind him.

It wasn’t until six exits up the PCH that he realized Sheldon had restarted the episode just before where he’d left off.

.

Penny gathered her discarded clothes and made sure her towel was cinched as tight as it could be around her chest. She’d heard doors open and close earlier, so she wasn’t sure who would be left in the living room. Based on their earlier reactions, the fewer the better.

She wandered on tip toes down the hallway and was halfway toward the living room when the tall, smoldering, slightly unhinged one – Sheldon – turned and locked eyes with her. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he bolted upright and screeched, “You’re – you can’t be – the floor!”

She backed against the wall closest to her as he whooshed past her and into one of the bedrooms. She turned and was about to continue her walk to get clean clothes when Sheldon returned with a plaid robe and averted eyes.

“You’re dripping all over the place and I can’t have that.”

Penny shrugged on the robe and knotted it tightly around her waist. Sheldon backed away, eyes still drawn to her, as he sat back down in his ‘spot.’

“Where’d the other guys go?”

“They are attempting to retrieve your TV from your ex-boyfriend, as requested. Pointless, of course."

"Pointless? I like my TV."

"Pointless in that they are about as likely to succeed in their efforts as I am of getting front-row tickets to watch quarks break free, escape decay, and float off into space.”

“And that’s …not likely to happen?”

Sheldon blinked, shaking his head. The heat of Penny's gaze made him feel as though he was speaking a different language and had no guidebook to decipher his words' double meaning. It unnerved him and yet, in the name of science, he had to know what she hinted at. He _needed_ to know.

“No. They’ve never been observed at energies that we’re able to produce. Possible, perhaps, in specialized circumstances but not likely.”

The words had tumbled out, with little forethought. He wasn't even sure if she fully understood his explanation. But, she grinned and continued to close the distance between them.

He was in way over his head, but couldn't admit it. With the way his body thrummed with excitement and his senses surged towards super-hero levels of perception, he didn't _want_ to admit it.

“Well, if you get lucky, remember to save me a seat?”

Penny shimmied back and forth until the towel slid down from beneath the robe. Sheldon’s jaw dropped and the credits rolled.

.

The door was locked when Leonard arrived back with Howard and Raj, both already fully-clothed, again. As though he weren’t frustrated enough by lack of pants or TV, he patted his pockets for his keys and tried to convince himself that he was still over-thinking things. Sheldon locked the door, sometimes. Not _often_ , but sometimes.

“Oh, my _God_!”

Leonard jumped back from the door and shared looks of shock with his two friends. That was a female voice and it sounded to be mostly out of breath.

Howard clamped a hand over Raj’s mouth to muffle a scream at the following very feminine, very throaty groan that echoed into the hallway.

“What do we do?” Howard whispered, sharply.

“I would have thought you’d be trying to bust the door down. Hell, if I know! Sheldon has shown more interest in his pad thai than the opposite sex! God, the least he could have done was put a tie on the door, or something. Didn’t he go to college?”

“Yeah, when he was like ten.” Raj mumbled, now calmed down enough to sneer at Wolowitz’ retracted hand. “We can’t go in there.”

“Why not? It’s my apartment, too.” Leonard frowned and scuffed a sneaker against the hallway carpet. “I don’t even have pants on.”

There was another groan. This time it was clearly male and clearly Sheldon.

“From the sound of that, neither does he.” Raj gave a crooked smile and ignored Leonard’s darkened gaze.

“Screw this, I’m going in there.” He pulled out his keys and wrestled with the others to get it in the deadlock.

They burst in to find Sheldon panting and Penny wearing Sheldon’s robe. Both with Halo controllers in hand. Penny jumped to her feet at the sight of Leonard without pants.

“Oh, no. What _happened_?” The boys continued to look back and forth between Sheldon and Penny.

“And what happened _here_?” Leonard sputtered out before he could formulate a response.

“Sheldon was showing me how to play Halo! I’m pretty good.” Penny shrugged with a wide grin.

Sheldon used her beaming in the others' direction to mouth the words _she cheats_ out of sight; his left eye twitched. Wolowitz let out a whimper of confusion.

“And you’re wearing Sheldon’s robe, because?”

Penny pulled it tighter around her frame and looked at Sheldon, concerned. “To dry off. I took a shower, remember?”

“Oh.” Leonard winced. “Well, yeah. That makes sense. Sorry, I thought – we were just upset about getting our pants stolen.”

“Pants stolen? Kurt did this?” Penny’s hands cupped her face, in horror and shock. She reached over and hugged Leonard, then Raj and Howard. “I’m so sorry. He’s such an ass, I just thought he might've been less of one with other people. Thank you so much for everything.”

Sheldon was the last to receive a hug and Penny pecking a kiss on his cheek barely registered to the other three, who still grinned dreamily at the blonde. She squeezed his wrist, before she turned on her heel and headed towards the doorway.

“I’m going to change and get my wallet. Dinner is on me,” she informed, sweetly. “You guys are so great, thank you. Really, _thank you_.”

As she pulled the belt of the robe tighter around her, Sheldon was the only one not ogling his shoes with bashfulness. She winked.

The door to her apartment shut behind her as Leonard's gaze finally turned back upward, a dopey grin and hopeful expression had trained itself across his features. Sheldon rolled his eyes. “You’re not done with her, yet. Are you?”

“Our babies will be smart _and_ beautiful.” Leonard tilted his head up just a bit, as though he were hoping to convince himself of that fact along with his friends.

Sheldon smirked, thinking back to impetuous kissing and soft, tanned skin slipping out from beneath plaid. “Not to mention _imaginary_.”


End file.
